


From the Ashes

by ImpishTubist



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kidfic, Language, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 15:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/800374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpishTubist/pseuds/ImpishTubist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim faces a long recovery after being badly injured on an away mission. Leonard and Joanna look after him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This isn’t intended to be related to [“Gently Into the Night,”](http://archiveofourown.org/works/643245) but you are welcome to read it that way if you wish to up the angst factor. [Joanna McCoy](http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Joanna_McCoy) is the creation of DeForest Kelley and D.C. Fontana. Two lines of dialogue were taken from TOS's "City on the Edge of Forever." You may need to suspend disbelief in regards to the medical aspects of the story.

Jim Kirk had been drunk off his ass many times during his years at the Academy, but only once had he been blindingly inebriated.

It had been his birthday, that much he knew, but he could never remember what it was that set him off, let alone why that birthday should have been different from all the others that came before it. Maybe one of his professors had unexpectedly played the _Kelvin_ tapes in lecture; maybe someone had made an offhand comment about his father. Maybe it was something completely unrelated to George Kirk and his sacrifice, but somehow Jim’s mind made the connection anyway.

Whatever the reason, Jim’s recollection of the day stopped around dinnertime. When he next became aware of himself, he was sitting on a pier in Monterey with a broken nose, dried blood on his shirt that wasn’t entirely his own, and a headache so monstrous he was begging passersby to lop his head off. Three days had passed without his being aware of them.

Bones was the one who found him, as he always did. He had stood there on the pier looking down at Jim for a long time, arms crossed, almost shaking with rage. He was ashen under his tan and his lips were white and thin. For a brief moment, Jim thought he was actually going to be granted his wish about decapitation. But Bones had finally hauled him to his feet, gotten his ass back to San Francisco, and confined him to the Academy’s medical bay for the weekend out of spite. Jim had accepted the punishment with none of his usual ribbing, for he had never before seen Bones so furious. It had been exceedingly unsettling.

He looked like that now, Jim thought as he blinked himself awake in _Enterprise_ ’s medical bay, vision hazy and blurred with all of the medication that had been pumped into his veins. Bones was pale, his mouth was a thin line, and his expression was a mix of terror and fury that didn’t go away entirely when he noticed Jim looking up at him, even though he did try to work his face into something vaguely resembling neutral professionalism.

“Tell you something, Jim,” Bones said gruffly after a long silence where they simply stared at one another, “I’m dog-tired of patching your sorry ass up.”

He pulled the sensor probe out of his medical tricorder and started to scan Jim’s legs. Jim blinked rapidly several times, trying to clear his sleep-blurred vision, narrowing his eyes against the harsh assault of the lights overhead. There was lot of activity going on around him, much more than was normal for the medical bay. He could pick out at least seven distinct conversations between different groups of doctors and nurses. There must have been a number of casualties.

“Bad news first,” Bones said brusquely as he set the scanner aside. “You took a hell of a pounding, Jim. You almost lost both your legs, and that punctured lung took me ages to repair. Breathing’s going to be a right pain for a while, and can I just say that it serves you right.”

His words were short and clipped, delivered on quick bursts of air that betrayed his agitation. Severe lines had etched themselves into his face around his mouth and at the corners of his eyes, and his brows were creased in worry.

“There are numerous cuts and bruises, but they’ll heal on their own. You had a concussion, and suffered damage to your spinal cord that nearly paralyzed you.” Bones’ eyes were hard chips of ice. “That wasn’t the case, however, needless to say. You’ll recover fully, given enough time. But I need you to stay off your feet for a couple of weeks, Jim, and I am _not_ kidding. One wrong move and you could complicate your injuries while they’re healing and make things worse. This time, medical leave _means_ medical leave. Do I make myself clear?”

Jim found he had the strength only to nod. Bones let out a breath.

“You’re a damned lucky son of a bitch, you know that?”

“No,” Jim rasped finally. “I just have an excellent doctor.”

He swallowed, wincing. Breathing alone was a chore; speaking was a battle. He felt as though a thin shroud had enveloped his mind, and the world around him was tinged with unreality. It was difficult to focus, and harder still to find the right words for his thoughts. 

“And the good news?” he managed after a moment. He gave Bones a weak smile. “Could use some right about now.”

Bones’ face softened, but the deep lines never left.

“I’m not keeping you in here for a second longer than is necessary,” he said in a low, earnest voice. He leaned down on the pretense of administering another hypo to the side of Jim’s neck, and looked him in the eye. “Soon as I’m certain you’re completely out of danger, I’m bringing you back to my quarters. Figured you would be more comfortable there while you heal.”

Jim’s fingers twitched, the only response his hand gave to his brain’s instructions to move. Bones noticed, though, and he lightly brushed his fingertips across the back of Jim’s knuckles, the only outward sign of affection he dared give in the medical bay. 

“Casualties?” Jim wheezed as Bones moved to check on the various equipment set up around the bed. Jim recognized only some of it--a heart monitor; a machine that displayed his vitals; an oxygen line in case he started having difficulty breathing. 

“Five injured, but you were the worst,” Bones said. “And no, the Debnar didn’t end up firing on the ship. Seems that attacking our away team was enough. Spock gave ‘em hell for that, let me tell you.”

Jim relaxed, listening with half an ear to the rest of the story, because Bones had already answered the one question he didn’t know how to ask in public. Joanna was all right, then. 

Bones’ little girl had been living on _Enterprise_ for just over a year, ever since a fire back on Earth had claimed her mother’s life. Bones and his ex-wife had moved beyond their less-than-amicable divorce during Bones’ time at the Academy, and they had largely been on good terms with one another at the time of her passing. 

“Spaceship ain’t no goddamn place to raise a kid,” Bones had said repeatedly in the wake of Jocelyn’s death, his words dejected, as though he was trying to convince himself that this was true. It largely was, Jim had to admit. He knew that Bones’ separation from his daughter ate at him like rust, but children and families weren’t allowed on Starfleet vessels for a reason. 

Bones had traveled alone to Earth for Jocelyn’s funeral, and had intended at the time to also sort out the final details of Joanna’s planetside custody. But when he commed _Enterprise_ less than twenty-four hours into his visit and requested a private vid call with the captain, Jim knew what it meant. 

It meant that he was going to be pulling every string he had available to him--and many that he didn’t--in order to bring Joanna back to the ship with Bones.

It was either that, or risk losing them both.

Jim blinked, slowly coming back to himself, and realized that the room had darkened considerably since he last was aware of his surroundings. Bones was gone from his side, too, and Jim surmised that he must have drifted off. It was strange and disconcerting to not remember even falling asleep, let alone having been unconscious. Just a moment ago, it seemed, he had been thinking of Joanna. 

A privacy curtain had been pulled around his bed, and Bones stepped around it. He had no doubt been alerted to Jim’s waking by the computer in his office, which was linked to each of the vital signs monitors that hung over every bed in the medical bay. 

“All right, Jim?” Bones asked as he checked the readouts from the various bits of equipment hooked up to Jim. “Pain?”

“Yes to both,” Jim rasped, but gave Bones a reassuring smile to let him know that it was fine; he’d had worse. 

Bones’ mouth was tight at the corners, a sign of his agitation at being so helpless in the face of Jim’s discomfort.

“It’s too soon for another round of painkillers,” he said. “I can get you a sleep aid.”

Jim shook his head and, when he tried to move his hand, this time found that it responded to his brain’s instructions. He touched Bones’ fingers, and Bones gently wrapped the hand in his own. 

“Baby girl’s been asking for you,” he said in a low voice. “You missed pasta night.”

Jim felt an unexpected prickling behind his eyes, and blinked it away.

“Tell Jo I’ll be seeing her soon,” he whispered. Bones nodded and squeezed his hand.

“I gotta go check on the others,” he said softly. “Will you be all right?”

Jim swept his thumb across the underside of Bones’ wrist, the gesture as intimate as a kiss.

“I’ll be fine. Go.”

\----

They brought Jim home six hours later.

If he had been any other patient, with the injuries he suffered, Leonard would have ordered him to remain in the medical bay for at least a week. But years of patching Jim up, both here on _Enterprise_ and at the Academy, had taught Leonard that forcing Jim to spend that amount of time confined to a bed in the non-privacy of the medical bay would have only hindered his healing process.

Besides, Leonard could better look after Jim while at home, and it meant that he wouldn’t have to leave Joanna largely in the care of strangers during Jim’s recovery. 

It took a team of four to move Jim to Leonard’s quarters. Leonard feared that using the transporter might complicate Jim’s delicate condition further, and so they had to move him by hand. Two orderlies handled the gurney while Leonard and Nurse Chapel moved all of the necessary monitoring equipment, some of which was still attached to Jim’s body. It was a long, awkward journey, compounded by the fact that even the slightest movement jostled Jim’s injuries. He bore the pain stoically, but by the time the group reached their destination, he was ashen and sweating profusely. 

“Bedroom,” Leonard told the team as they stepped into his quarters. “I’ll be right there.”

Joanna was sitting on the sofa, a book in her lap, and she had been reading aloud to Lieutenant Harriman--her minder for the day--when the medical team came through the doors. She went quiet, watching the scene with narrowed eyes as she tried to figure out what was going on. She didn’t look frightened, which Leonard was glad of, but when her eyes fell on the medical equipment her face took on an expression of apprehension. 

She knew what hospital equipment looked like, and what it meant.

Leonard dismissed Harriman with a nod and a quick thanks. He would have to thank her properly later on, once Jim was settled and Joanna’s mind put at ease. 

“Hey, baby girl,” he said, coming to sit next to her on the sofa. “What’re you reading?”

“Who’s that?” she asked instead, not about to be sidetracked by her father’s innocent questioning. 

“Remember when I told you that Uncle Jim couldn’t come visit because he was hurt real bad?” Leonard asked, and she nodded. “Well, he’s been getting better, so I brought him h - here.”

He stumbled on the last word, almost having said _home_ instead. 

“Is he gonna live with us?” was Joanna’s next question. Leonard shook his head, and felt an unexpected stab of regret in his chest.

“No, baby,” he said, smoothing a hand over her dark hair. “No, he just is staying with us until he gets better.”

“You’re gonna take care of him?”

Leonard gave her a smile.

“Yeah, I’m gonna take care of him.”

The medical team had settled Jim in Leonard’s bed, and they left him to make all the various adjustments to the equipment. He spent some time making sure everything was hooked up properly, and then checked in with Jim.

“You all right there, darlin’?” Leonard asked in a low voice, smoothing his knuckles over Jim’s stubbled cheek. He was barely conscious, a mix of medication and exhaustion keeping him just on the brink of sleep. 

“Fine,” he murmured. “Jo?”

“Just a bit curious, that’s all. Not scared in the slightest.”

Jim nodded slowly. 

“Good.”

Leonard leaned down and gave him a gentle kiss. 

“I gotta go fix her some dinner. Press this button if you need me, all right?”

But Jim was already asleep.

 

For the most part, Joanna understood what was going on. She knew that Jim had been badly injured, and that he was going to stay with them until he was better. She understood that bad people had hurt him, and that they wouldn’t be coming back (Mr. Spock made sure of that). But the one thing she couldn’t understand was her father’s newest restriction. She had never before been barred from the bedroom during the day, and couldn’t understand why Leonard had suddenly cordoned off the room.

“Why can’t I go in?” Joanna asked, one hand fisted into Leonard’s trousers as she gazed up at him imploringly. The other held her favorite stuffed rabbit.

“Because Uncle Jim is sick, and he needs his rest,” Leonard explained patiently for the second time that evening. He was standing by the computer interface that was mounted on one wall in the main room, skimming over the afternoon’s reports from the medical bay. Normally, he would use the computer at his desk for this task, but his bedroom had doubled as his office ever since Joanna came aboard _Enterprise_ , and he had no wish to disturb Jim right now.

“But I want to see him,” Joanna pointed out, as though this was a valid exception to her father’s _no one can disturb Jim_ rule. Leonard shut down the interface.

“I know, Jo-jo,” he said, dropping into a crouch and looking her in the eye. “I know. But Uncle Jim’s asleep. You can see him later. I promise.”

Apparently, however, that was precisely the wrong thing to say. Joanna’s eyes welled, and she shrank back a little from her father. Leonard sat frozen, unsure of what he had done wrong. 

“What’s wrong, baby girl?” he tried finally, and then repeated, “Uncle Jim’s fine, he’s just sleepin’ for a bit -”

“That’s what they said,” Joanna broke in quietly, “when Mama was hurt. An’ they wouldn’t let me see her.”

Leonard’s stomach bottomed out, and he cursed inwardly. _Of course_ , he should have known that would be the wrong thing to say to Joanna, whose questions and fears had been stymied last year by incompetent doctors and helpless family friends, none of whom wanted to tell her the truth about her mother’s passing without informing her father first. And Leonard had never quite forgiven himself for that fiasco, even though there was nothing he could have done about _Enterprise_ ’s radio silence. They had been mapping a nebula when the fire back in Georgia claimed Jocelyn’s life. Leonard found out about the accident three days later, when interference had cleared enough for communication to be possible with Earth once again. 

Joanna had gone three days without news, without hearing from her father or seeing her mother, and had spent it all in the care of near-strangers who didn’t know how to act around her. Leonard wasn’t going to chance such a nightmare happening again. 

And Joanna deserved better than this. 

“Okay,” he said finally, and Joanna’s eyes widened. “All right, baby girl, I’ll take you to see him. But Uncle Jim is very sick, remember that. You have to be careful with him.”

Joanna nodded solemnly, and Leonard pushed himself to his feet. He held out his hand, and Joanna latched onto the ends of his fingers. 

She was quiet as Leonard led her to the bedroom, and when he opened the door she seemed reluctant to step across the threshold. But she wasn’t tall enough to see Jim on the bed, and when Leonard released her hand she took a few uncertain steps forward, craning her neck. 

Leonard padded over to the bed and checked the monitoring equipment. Jim’s condition hadn’t changed since he was first brought in six hours ago--his pulse was steady, if weak, and his breathing was shallow. It wasn’t dangerous, but it certainly wasn’t optimal, either.

The room, in just a few hours, had taken on the sickly-sweet smell Leonard had come to associate with hospital rooms of the very ill. A thin trace of antiseptic cut through the air every now and again, buffeted by a light breeze from the ventilation system. 

“Come here.” Leonard sat down next to Jim’s still form and reached out for Joanna. She came readily into his arms, and he lifted her onto the bed. “See? Uncle Jim’s just sleeping, like I said.”

Joanna still appeared dubious. She watched Jim’s face for a long while, her brows furrowed, and then said, “He’s not moving.”

She sounded impossibly terrified, and her hands had curled into fists, gripping her stuffed animal so tightly Leonard feared she might rip it. 

“No, no, baby, it’s all right,” Leonard tried to quickly reassure. “See?”

He reached out and placed a hand on Jim’s chest. The other man’s breathing was shallow, and thus barely discernible in the dim light of the room, but it was noticeable when touching his chest. Joanna copied him, her tiny hand dwarfed by her father’s brawny one. After a moment, her expression cleared, and she relaxed fully when Jim coughed in his sleep a few seconds later. 

Leonard gave her a reassuring smile. 

“And here, feel this.” He took her tiny hand in his and pressed two of her fingers just under Jim’s jaw, right over his pulse-point. “Know what that is? It’s Uncle Jim’s heartbeat. He’s sleepin’, and he’s gonna be just fine.”

“Promise?”

Leonard leaned over and kissed her forehead.

“I promise, baby girl.”

\----

Leonard slept on a cot in his bedroom for the first night of Jim’s stay. He didn’t want to risk accidentally rolling into Jim at some point during the night, as they were now used to reaching for one another whenever they shared a bed. More often than not, they woke in the morning as a tangle of limbs, but that wouldn’t do right now with Jim’s injuries. 

Neither of them slept very much that night. Jim was up every few hours due to the pain, and Leonard generally woke only a few seconds after he did. 

He treated Jim’s discomfort with various painkillers. He also had a number of hyposprays filled with medicine to ease Jim’s breathing and to help along his healing legs. Sometimes combinations of those medications prevented certain painkillers from being used on him, and Leonard had to improvise. What worked on the pain at one point might not work three hours later. 

“Dunno how you do it,” Jim murmured groggily towards 0500. It was the fourth time they had woken that night, and Leonard’s head was beginning to pound with lack of sleep. He could only imagine what Jim was going through.

“Do what, darlin’?” he asked absently as he loaded yet another hypospray, hoping that this one would do the trick. The first two he tried had been ineffective this time around.

“Keep from murderin’ me for wakin’ you up.” Jim gave him a goofy, medicine-laden smile. “You’re unbeliev’ble.” 

“Hardly. More like an idiot in love,” Leonard said wryly, pressing the hypo against Jim’s neck.

“... was that?” Jim muttered, only half of the question making it past his lips. Leonard smoothed the hair off his forehead, his fingers cool against Jim’s searing skin.

“Nothin’, Jim. Rest.”

And this time, Jim stayed asleep.

\----

Joanna was the first thing Jim saw when he woke up the next morning. 

“Hey, there,” he whispered, a slow smile spreading across his face when his surroundings finally registered. “Hey, beautiful. How’re you?”

“Hi,” Joanna said quietly. She was sitting next to him on the bed, cross-legged, her cerulean eyes narrowed in concentration as she watched him. He held out a hand, beckoning her closer, and she obligingly leaned down so that he could place a kiss on her cheek. “Daddy says you got hurt.”

“Yeah, ‘fraid I did.” Jim winced as he shifted his weight. He had been in one position for far too long, and his back was protesting angrily. But any movement he made sent bolts of pain shooting through his legs. “Jo, is your dad around? I -”

“Right here, Jim.” Bones breezed into the room. “Sorry about that, I had to take a call from the medical bay.”

“Something wrong?” Jim asked. Bones’ hand went automatically to his forehead, as it always did. His reflexive response when someone wasn’t feeling right was to check for fever. It was an endearing habit. 

“No. Just advising Chapel on duty shifts. I’ve taken the next few days off. They’ll manage without me.” Bones loaded another hypospray and pressed it to Jim’s neck. “Joanna, go finish your breakfast.”

“But I wanna stay with Uncle Jim.”

“You can see him after you finish your meal.”

Bones’ voice was brusque this morning, as the combination of sleep deprivation and stress had worn down his already-miniscule amount of patience. 

“But, Daddy -”

_ “Joanna,”  _ Bones said sharply, silencing her. “Breakfast. Now.”

“It’s all right, Jo,” Jim said, holding out a hand to her. She took it. “I’m not going anywhere. Go eat your food. And then - why don’t you bring me a book? Come read to me when you’re done.”

Joanna finished her breakfast dutifully and then spent the rest of the morning in bed with him, reading very carefully from various books Bones had downloaded for her from the computer database. Jim drifted in and out of sleep. Whenever he woke, it was always to find Joanna watching over him patiently. 

“I think she’s worried you’re gonna... leave,” Bones said when Jim woke again towards the evening, this time with Joanna’s head resting on his shoulder while she slumbered. He was sitting at his desk in the corner of the room, going over some reports.

“You can say _dead_ , Bones, it’s all right,” Jim sighed, working out a crick in his neck with his hand. 

“It’s not,” Bones replied. They stared at one another for a moment.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jim said quietly.

“I know.”

But Bones didn’t sound convinced.

“Daddy’s angry,” Joanna told Jim softly later that night. He was propped up against a mound of pillows, not quite in a sitting position but less horizontal than before. Joanna was nestled in his lap. He had been idly running his fingers through her hair, and it was lulling her into a light doze. The book she had been reading to him had fallen closed, and she made no move to open it again. 

“No,” Jim said, smoothing a hand over her hair, the way he had seen Bones do so many times before. “He’s scared.”

Joanna twisted around to look at him, blinking the cloud of exhaustion from her eyes.

“Scared of what?” she asked, her face fixed in a perplexed frown, as though it was ludicrous that her father could be frightened of anything.

_ Of you. Of me. Of losing us to the void. _

“He’s scared of the darkness,” Jim said finally, quietly.

Joanna settled back against his chest again. She was quiet for a moment, thinking.

“I get scared of the dark, too,” she said finally.

“Oh?” Jim adjusted his grip on her. “And what do you do when that happens?”

“Daddy comes and tells me it’s gonna be all right,” Joanna said. “He’s gonna keep me safe.”

She was quiet for a while after that, and her breathing evened out. Jim thought she had finally fallen asleep, and was about to summon Bones when Joanna spoke again. Her voice was impossibly small.

“Who keeps Daddy safe?”

Jim wrapped her in a loose hug and kissed her cheek, ignoring the protest of his healing injuries as he jostled them with the movement. He held her close and hoped she wouldn’t pick up on the absurdity of his next words, seeing as they were spoken by a man too injured to get out of bed. He meant every one of them, nonetheless.

“I do, sweetheart.”

\----

Jim’s condition fluctuated for the rest of the week. Some days were worse than others when it came to the pain. Sometimes he was far too exhausted to even eat, and slept eighteen hours out of twenty-four. Other times he was plagued by insomnia, and spent entire endless nights wide awake. 

Joanna never strayed very far from his side, and Jim began to suspect that Bones was right when it came to his daughter’s unspoken fears. But her hovering reminded Jim strongly of Bones, and he couldn’t help but smile at it. 

This similarity was reinforced one afternoon, when he woke from a nap to find Joanna’s hand on his forehead.

Jim cracked open an eye and blinked at her. 

“Whatcha doin’ there, sweetheart?” he murmured gently. Joanna withdrew her hand.

“Daddy does that when I’m sick,” she told him solemnly. “Do you know why?”

Jim gave her a sleepy smile.

“‘Cause he’s got a magic touch and it makes you all better,” he ventured playfully.

Joanna looked at him as though he’d just sprouted horns.

“No,” she said incredulously. “It’s to check for fever. There’s no such thing as _magic.”_

Bones, apparently, couldn’t contain his amusement any longer, and Jim heard a sharp bark of laughter from the vicinity of his desk. 

“Baby girl’s a lot smarter than you give her credit for, Jim,” he said. Jim heard him get up, and a moment later he sat down on the edge of the bed, well within Jim’s field of vision. He pressed his hand to Jim’s forehead, just as Joanna had done, but a frown cut through his features. “Actually, she’s a lot smarter than _I_ give her credit for. You _are_ running a fever.”

Jim loved that about Bones, how he needed to poke and prod and _feel_ before he brought in the technology. He always felt for a fever with the palm of his hand; always pressed gentle fingers around bruises and abrasions, as though that mere act alone might heal them. The ritual of touch grounded him, and forged a bond between doctor and patient that Bones always said was necessary in the healing process. Starfleet, he’d said many times to Jim, was determined to stamp all the humanity out of the profession by taking away any need for doctors to have contact with their patients. So much healing could be done remotely now, it frightened Bones.

_ I need my patients to know that someone will be there for them _ , he’d confided to Jim once. _I need them to know that they won’t walk this path alone. No goddamn robot can do that for them, but I can._

“Bad sign?” Jim whispered. Bones shrugged, though he did reach for the medical bag that he had started keeping within an arm’s reach at all times. He administered another couple of hypos to the side of Jim’s neck. 

“I expect it’s just your body reacting to all the medication in your system, but we’ll keep an eye on it.”

Jim dozed for the next few hours, but his breathing felt ragged and he never managed to drop completely off. He woke fully shortly after dinner, and Joanna curled up next to him in bed with a coloring book. But Jim only half-listened to her chatter this time, as he was distracted by a building pressure in his chest, one that had been there since the afternoon but which was becoming increasingly distracting. He was finding it more and more difficult to breathe, and wondered if that was simply a result of his exhaustion.

But then Bones came into the room, took one look at him, and snapped into emergency mode. He was at Jim’s side in an instant, peeling back his eyelids to peer into his eyes and then checking on the monitoring equipment. A moment later, the flat tone of an alarm started to go off. 

“Joanna,” Bones said briskly, his calm voice coming from very far away. “I need you to call Nurse Chapel. Do you remember how to do that, sweetheart?”

Jim didn’t hear Joanna’s response, if she gave one at all. He didn’t have long to dwell on it, either, for quick fingers were doing away with the buttons on his shirt. It was pushed from his shoulders, and then Bones’ warm hands were on his chest, pressing down on the old incisions and feeling his throat. Jim’s breathing echoed in his ears, great gasps that didn’t draw nearly enough air, and his vision began to white out. 

Bones’ soft voice was an anchor, and he tried to hold onto it. 

“Sh, Jim, it’s all right. I’ve got you. Stay with me, all right? _Jim_.”


	2. Chapter 2

Jim woke with a great weight on his chest, and he panicked in the moment before sleep cleared fully from his mind and he realized that it was only Joanna, and that he could still breathe.

“Hey, Jo-jo,” he whispered, even though she couldn’t hear him. His neck was stiff, but he managed to turn his head anyway and give her a quick kiss on the forehead. She sniffed in her sleep and then burrowed further into his chest, slumbering on.

Bones, Jim always contended, had some psychic ability when it came to his patients. He seemed to know instinctively when someone was awake, or in pain, or in need of something. He appeared in the doorway to the bedroom now, dressed in civvies, his hair disheveled and lines prominent in his face. Jim wondered how long he had been unconscious. 

“It’s been twelve hours,” Bones answered without being asked. He padded over to the bed and perched gingerly on the edge. His fingers probed Jim’s face, lifting his eyelids and feeling his throat. “How do you feel?”

Jim saw now, up close, the deep purple crescents that ringed the underside of Bones’ eyes. He wondered if Bones had slept at all. 

“Better,” he whispered at last, because while he certainly didn’t feel _good_ , he felt at least a step above dying. “What happened?”

“Anaphylactic shock,” Bones said. “You reacted badly to one of the painkillers.”

He had clenched his hand into a fist where it rested on his knee. Jim covered it with his own.

“Not your fault,” he said gruffly. Bones snorted.

“I should’ve seen it, Jim,” he muttered. “You’re allergic to half the stuff in the medical bay. I should have _known_. A first-year medical student would have realized it was the wrong combination of medication to give you. What the hell kind of CMO am I if I can’t even properly treat my -”

He broke off. Jim squeezed his hand.

“You’re exhausted,” he said. “You’re under enormous stress. It wasn’t your fault. And look, I’m _fine_.”

Bones said nothing, but he sat there until Jim fell asleep again, as though the sheer intensity of his hawk-like gaze could protect Jim from further ailments.

\----

Jim sat up for the first time the next day. At first, the change in position made him dangerously light-headed, but once his blood pressure regulated itself he found that it made all the difference. For the first time since the attack he felt as though he possessed some energy, and he passed a quiet couple of hours reading in bed.

Joanna and Bones were out in the main room. The door to the bedroom had been left open halfway so that Jim could call to them if he needed something. He listened for a while between chapters of his book, catching only snatches of their conversation, and guessed that Bones was teaching Joanna the rules of a game.

“See, now I’m gonna move my piece over here, and then it’ll be your turn...”

Jim tipped his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He had never had chance to observe Bones and Joanna interacting together, just as father and daughter. To Joanna, he was mostly Uncle Jim. Sometimes he was her daddy’s more-than-friend, and once in a great while, whenever she wasn’t consciously thinking about it, he was _papa_. But the fact remained that the dynamic between Bones and Joanna was different when he was around, simply because he was present. This, the two of them just together--this was something he had never had chance to even remotely observe.

It took a while for the silence to register, but Jim opened his eyes when it did, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling. He wasn’t entirely sure how long it had been since he last heard voices in the other room, but the silence was now lengthy and noticeable. He debated hauling himself out of bed and going to check on them, but dismissed that idea as paranoid. 

And then he heard a shaky breath; a wavering gulp of air. His stomach clenched, his suspicions confirmed a moment later by Bones’ quiet, “Oh, baby girl, come here. What’s wrong?”

Joanna’s answer was a single, heavy sob. She hated when undue attention was paid to her, and unlike many other children her age, preferred to cry alone. Bones always knew, though, when she was distraught, and Jim was slowly beginning to pick up on the signs as well. 

The fact that she was crying openly now was a bad sign, Jim was willing to bet. He listened to Joanna’s stifled cries for several agonizing minutes, debating whether or not it was worth defying Bones’ direct orders not to get out of bed. 

He had almost worked himself into a sitting position with his legs over the side of the bed when he finally heard Joanna mutter something inaudible to Bones.

“What was that?” Bones asked.

“... don’t wan’ him to die.”

Most of Joanna’s sentence had been lost, but that part reached Jim’s ears unmolested. His heart sank, and his throat dammed up. 

_ Shit. _

Very carefully, Jim eased his legs back onto the bed, thankful for the round of painkillers Bones had given him not an hour ago. He sank back against the pillows and turned his face to the ceiling, balling both of his hands into fists because he wanted so desperately to make it better--to make it _right_ \--and knew that he couldn’t. 

He couldn’t promise a little girl who had already lost her mother that he would always come home to her. Any illusions Joanna might have harbored about her parents’ invulnerability had been shattered long ago, and he wasn’t going to insult her with false hopes.

Jim estimated that near half an hour passed before Joanna’s cries finally quieted, and it was a further fifteen minutes before Bones came in to check on him. 

He made a decent show of checking the monitoring equipment and administering another light painkiller to keep the worst of the agony at bay. But Jim saw the distress in his eyes, and the lips that had pulled themselves into a thin, almost non-existent line. When Bones turned to go, Jim wrapped his fingers around his wrist.

Bones sat heavily on the side of the bed, acquiescing to the silent request. He rested his elbows on his thighs and put his head in his hands, and was silent for a long while. Jim put a hand on his shoulder, lightly stroking his thumb back and forth across the fabric of Bones’ shirt. 

“She asleep?” he asked in a low voice. Bones nodded.

“Yeah, out like a light.” He was quiet for a moment. 

“Len,” Jim said. 

“You heard all that,” Bones said finally. 

“Parts of it,” Jim admitted. Bones nodded to himself.

“I just made that little girl a promise I can’t keep,” he said dully. “I -”

He stopped suddenly.

“Go on,” Jim pressed. Bones shook his head.

“I told her I’d keep you safe,” he said softly, misery plain in his voice.

“You’ve been doing that for five years now,” Jim pointed out gently. “That’s not a lie, Len.”

“Feels like one,” Bones said bitterly. “I don’t keep you safe, Jim, I’m just damned good at putting you back together. But my luck ain’t gonna last forever.”

He broke off again.

“I can’t keep you safe. I can’t guarantee even that Joanna will be all right. I’m pretty goddamn useless,” he said finally. “Both as a father and as a - well -”

He waved a hand vaguely. 

“Seems to me that you weren’t able to guarantee Joanna’s safety when she was on Earth, either,” Jim pointed out gently. The muscles under his hand tensed, but Bones’ expression softened slightly. 

“Yeah,” he murmured in resignation. “S’pose you’re right.”

“The other option was to leave her on Earth with strangers,” Jim added.

“There was always a third option,” Bones pointed out. Jim’s heart clenched at the thought of that. If it had come down to it--truly come down to it--Bones would have resigned his Starfleet commission and moved back to Earth with Joanna. Or he would have broken his contract, which carried a heavy penalty these days. Either way, he would have understandably left _Enterprise_ \--and Jim--behind. “Dammit, Jim, I just don’t want her to have to watch another parent die.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Jim said weakly, even though he didn’t believe it any more than Bones did. “Not again, Bones.”

Bones shook his head.

“Lightning doesn’t strike twice, Jim, so long as you don’t provoke it. But if you go outside in a storm with a metal rod, you bet your ass you’re gonna get struck.” Bones sighed heavily through his nose. “And this ship--she’s wonderful, but she’s about the biggest lightning rod I’ve ever seen, and we’re smack-dab in the middle of the storm.”

Jim took Bones by the elbow and gave his arm a gentle tug. Bones stared at him for a long moment, and then finally gave in. He allowed Jim to pull him down and wrap his arms around the back of his shoulders, effectively holding Bones against his chest. Bones rested his ear over Jim’s heart and pushed his arms under Jim’s back, holding him in a tight embrace. His thick hair brushed against Jim’s jaw, and Jim kissed the top of his head. 

“The moment I think baby girl’s life is in true danger, I’m packing you both off to Earth,” Jim said. “I promise you that, Bones.”

Bones lifted his head from Jim’s chest and pressed their foreheads together.

“I told you before, Jim, I ain’t goin’ anywhere without you,” he said gruffly. “I belong here. _By your side.”_

“ _‘As though you’ve always been there, and always will be,_ ’” Jim finished quietly, Admiral Pike’s words echoing in his mind as he said them out loud. “Yes. I know.”

He sighed heavily.

“Then we make the best out of the life we’ve been given,” he said at last, “and the life we’ve chosen. That’s all we _can_ do, Bones.”

Bones kissed him, once, briefly. And then again, this time lingering before pulling away. 

“And whatever we do, we do it _together.”_

\----

Jim was up and walking a few days later.

_ Walking  _ was probably too generous of a term. _Lurching_ and _hobbling_ were more apt, and he couldn’t have managed any of it without Bones’ aid. Joanna had been sent away for the day, not because she’d be in the way, but because Bones surmised that Jim would be cursing horribly through it all.

And he was right. 

But by the afternoon, Jim was able to limp--with Bones’ help--from one side of the main room to the other. His recuperation had, among other things, largely robbed him of his energy reserves, and after about fifteen minutes he needed to rest again. Bones settled him on the sofa, sitting upright, and brought him a stack of PADDs in order to keep him occupied. 

“You haven’t done a lick of work these past few days,” Bones said. “And now you ain’t got an excuse. Those are all reports that you need to sign off on.”

Jim groaned.

“Isn’t that what Spock’s for?” he muttered. Bones snorted.

“Spock’s too damn busy running the ship you left behind to worry about something like that. You’re just sitting around on your ass all day. That means _you_ get to do the paperwork.”

The door chimed suddenly, interrupting what was turning into a classic Bones tirade. He sighed, grumbled under his breath, and then answered it. 

“Oh, speak of the green-blooded devil,” he muttered, his persona shifting in an instant. His shoulders straightened and his demeanor became distant. He was no longer a man goading his lover, but now a doctor scolding his commanding officer for not following his instructions to the letter. “He’s being a right pain in the ass, Commander, I don’t mind saying. He’s all yours for a bit. Captain, if you need me, I’ll be in my office.”

Spock dismissed Bones with a nod as he stepped into the quarters, and Bones disappeared into his bedroom.

“Commander.” Jim straightened as much as he was able, biting back a wince at the twinge in his legs. He gestured to a chair opposite the couch, and Spock perched on it. “What can I do for you?”

“Doctor McCoy expects that you will make a swift and complete recovery,” Spock said, though there was a slight edge to his voice. If Jim didn’t know any better, he’d say that Spock didn’t entirely trust the doctor’s assessment, and fought back an amused smile. Spock and Bones might be constantly at each other’s throats, but they at least did have a common--and endearing--goal. 

“And you wanted to see for yourself, I gather,” Jim said with a slight smirk. He spread his arms. “I’m almost good as new, Spock.”

Spock lifted an eyebrow at him. 

“I shall await confirmation from the medical bay prior to agreeing with that assessment,” he said dryly. “But I am here on other business, Captain.”

“I figured,” Jim said, sobering quickly. “I take it diplomatic relations with the Debnar are less than stellar at the moment.”

“Indeed. And Admiral Jenkins has demanded that a full investigation be conducted to see if our people behaved in a way that might have provoked the attack.”

“Behaved - oh, this is ridiculous, Spock! Nothing happened prior to the attack. We had only just arrived at the reception hall! And anyway, _nothing_ warrants that type of an assault. They can’t be serious about this!”

The admiralty was, it turned out, very serious, and they spent the next half an hour discussing how best to conduct the investigation. At the end of it, they at least had a semblance of a plan, but Jim was left with a splitting headache and a persistent throb in his legs. He wondered if there was a way to bring the conversation to a swift end, as he could barely keep up with what Spock was telling him anymore.

His salvation came less than a second after that thought crossed his mind, when the door to Bones’ bedroom opened and he emerged.

“I’m afraid I’m gonna have to cut this meeting short, Commander,” he said briskly. He walked over to his medical kit and began assembling another hypospray. “I can’t have you exhausting my patient, or he’ll be off-duty for longer than either of us would like.”

Jim shot Bones a grateful smile - and, unexpectedly, it was returned. 

Bones, he often thought, had three smiles. There was the one he reserved for public, a smirk more than a smile, and it usually accompanied a droll remark. The second smile was Joanna’s, and hers alone. Jim had only seen it a couple of times, and both times Bones had been unaware that they were being observed. The smile he reserved for Joanna was full of gentle warmth, infused with a confidence Jim knew that Bones struggled with as a single parent. But he was her father, first and foremost, and his smile said that he would always be there to make things right for her.

The third smile was for Jim. It was kind, and lacking in Bones’ usual snark. There was a hint of vulnerability to it, too, one that was missing from his other smiles. This smile was completely and utterly _Bones._ He was offering up his heart, tentatively but completely, entrusting both his feelings and his reservations to Jim. He gave it all with the knowledge that he could be hurt, and badly, but also with the awareness that this could be the best thing he’s ever had. 

And it was the smile he was giving now, while Spock was still in the room. 

Jim’s heart stumbled against his ribcage, as it always did when Bones gave him that smile, and then felt his stomach drop when Bones turned back to his work and he realized Spock was still standing patiently nearby. He cleared his throat.

“Was there something else?” Jim asked, attempting to sound nonchalant and mostly succeeding. 

Spock paused for a moment before answering, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Captain, if I may be perfectly blunt,” his eyes flicked to Bones, and then back again, “I believe you have been keeping something from me.”

Bones calmly finished loading the hypospray and pressed it against the side of Jim’s neck. The medication started to take hold within seconds, and Jim gave him a grateful nod as he started to regain his equilibrium. Bones turned away, clearly intending to let Jim deal with this by feeding Spock whatever lie he preferred, but Jim stopped him with a hand on his elbow. 

“Yes,” he said to Spock. “I have.”

Jim slid his fingers between Bones’, holding on. Bones’ eyes flicked from him to their joined hands to Spock, the corners of his mouth tight with apprehension. 

“I see,” Spock said. “I take it Starfleet is not aware of this?”

“We’ve never said anything,” Jim told him. “Pike figured it out, but no one else, far as we can tell.”

Spock nodded.

“Thank you for informing me, Captain. If there is nothing else, I should be getting back to the bridge.”

Jim dismissed him with a nod. When he had gone, Bones gently tugged his hand from Jim’s grasp.

“Jim,” he said quietly, “what did you just do?” 

Jim was still staring at the door Spock had just stepped through. He felt light-headed.

“Something I should have done a long time ago, Len.”

\----

Leonard had one item in his quarters that wasn’t Starfleet-issue, and that was an overstuffed chair he had brought from his Savannah home. 

Jocelyn may have gotten the whole damn planet in the divorce--and their daughter to boot--but Leonard had at least managed to negotiate away the chair. It would seem a hollow, pitiful victory to an outsider, but it meant the world to Leonard. 

The chair was the very first piece of furniture he and Jocelyn had purchased together, and though the marriage had ended in misery, back at the beginning there had been so much hope, and so much future. He had spent countless hours in that chair, rocking infant Joanna back to sleep or feeding her so that Jocelyn could have a break. It had given father and daughter a chance to bond, and as their time together had been cut short by the divorce, Leonard would always be grateful for that. 

It was also the only link he had to his child after leaving Savannah, and he had brought the chair with him to the Academy. It made his already-cramped graduate student rooms almost impossible to navigate, but Leonard wasn’t about to give it up over a minor inconvenience. 

He had been sitting in that chair when Jim first kissed him, a smirk on his lips and bourbon on his tongue, nearly a year before the incident with the _Narada_. And Jim had pushed him into that chair, hands heavy and warm on Leonard’s shoulders, three days after their heroic return to Earth so that he could deliver the news that would forever change Leonard’s life--and the future they had tentatively been planning together.

_ They’re giving me the  _ Enterprise.

That news alone had been heart-wrenching. The sentence that followed was unbelievable: _You’re going to be my CMO._

Leonard hadn’t been Starfleet’s first pick for their flagship’s CMO, and he had known that from the start. The position had been thrust upon him in the heat of battle, and though he bore the burden well, it wasn’t ideal. When the dust settled, Starfleet decided that the best thing for _Enterprise_ was a more seasoned officer--and one who had a healthy respect for both Starfleet policies and technology.

Jim wouldn’t have any of it. 

“We went through hell and back on our very first mission, Len, and we saved the planet along the way,” he had said heatedly. “I’m not splitting up this crew.”

Jim was sleeping in that chair now, legs propped up on a low table and his chin touching his shoulder, utterly exhausted by his exertions today. Leonard hoped that he hadn’t overdone it, and made sure he had an extra couple of hypos loaded up just in case. If Jim had indeed pushed himself too far, he was in for a world of pain tonight. 

Joanna had been dropped off by the sitter late in the afternoon, and Leonard spent a quiet evening alone with her. They watched old vids and read a couple of books, and Jim slumbered on in his corner of the room. 

Leonard had tried to do everything too quickly the first time around--marriage, children, a career. He had been brash and arrogant and infatuated, and everything around him glowed with such intensity he thought he might go blind with it all.

But he didn’t go blind so much as he went down in flames, and every corner of his life burned to pieces around him until there was nothing left but ashes. 

Ashes, and Joanna. 

Leonard could think of two dozen people who were far more deserving of second chances than he, but the fact remained that his little girl was now sitting in his lap, and his best friend was inexplicably in love with him, and they were all living in a void with only a thin cocoon of metal to keep the vacuum at bay. It wasn’t the life Leonard imagined for himself, not by far, but it was the one he had been given.

He wouldn't trade it for anything.

\----

Jim woke in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, pain flaring up and down his legs as though they were burning from the inside out. 

Bones was already awake, and he was leaning over Jim with a comforting, grounding hand on his chest. His blue sleep shirt was rumpled, and the sleep-mussed hair on the back of his head was sticking straight up. Jim would have laughed if he thought that wouldn’t make the bone-jarring agony in his legs worse than it was. He gasped and grabbed for Bones’ hand.

“I know, darlin’,” Bones murmured. He leaned close as Jim squeezed the blood from his hand, swallowing back the cry that threatened to rip from his throat as another bout of agony hit him. “I know, it hurts. Breathe with me, c’mon.”

Jim latched onto the sound of Bones’ voice, and even through the blood pounding in his ears he was able to make out the exaggerated, audible breaths that Bones was drawing. He struggled to do the same, wheezing his way through several lungfuls of air. 

“Deeper than that, Jim, come on,” Bones ordered, and Jim gasped, trying to force down air that wouldn’t come. 

He was so focused on his breathing, though, that for a time he didn’t completely register the pain. Bones was still holding his hand, rubbing his thumb in gentle circles over Jim’s wrist, and Jim loosened his grip. 

“Thirty minutes,” Bones said quietly, “and then I can give you another dose of painkiller. Think you can handle that, Captain?”

He leaned over Jim, reaching for a glass of water on the bedside table, and braced Jim with an arm around the back of his shoulders so that he could drink from it. 

“Of course,” Jim rasped finally, and Bones set the glass aside. He tried to infuse a bit of confidence into the words, but they sounded as uncertain as he felt. 

“Ain’t gonna last forever, Jim,” Bones said gruffly, as though he could tell what Jim was thinking. “You just pushed yourself too hard today, that’s all.”

He leaned against the pillows and pulled Jim back against his chest, careful not to jostle his legs in any way. He wrapped an arm around Jim’s chest from behind and rested his cheek against Jim’s hair, and for a while they sat, Jim feeling the rhythm of Bones’ breathing and occupying himself for a time by trying to match it. Eventually, Bones began to talk, quietly relating the various bits of ship’s gossip that reached his ears in the medical bay, which sometimes saw more of the crew pass through its doors than the bridge and engineering did.

“... and that’s when Lieutenant Bishop decided that she’d had enough and, get this -”

Bones was very rarely quiet, and he never spoke so much as he growled, barked, and snapped. His words were always efficient. He usually had neither the time nor the patience for taking care with his words, and never saw the point in cushioning whatever he had to say with useless filler. There was no point in taking the time to say something in thirty words when ten would suffice. 

But Bones had two great loves in this life: his daughter and his patients. Jim had never seen him be quite so gentle as when he was tending to one of them, and he took all the time and care in the world while he did it. And, in his most private moments, Jim liked to think that perhaps Bones had a third love.

It certainly felt that way now, as Bones prattled on about this and that, the words themselves meaningless but the gesture filled with an unspoken love. He was distracting Jim the only way he knew how, keeping his mind off the pain in the only way available to him when artificial means failed. And then, what felt like only minutes later, he was gently pressing a hypospray against the side of Jim’s neck. 

“How’s that?” Bones asked after a moment. Jim felt an odd warmth spread through his veins, which he was used to by now, and then a dull numbness in his legs, which he was not. 

“Better,” he said quietly, because even though the sensation was disconcerting, the pain had faded almost instantly. 

Sleep was now tugging insistently at his mind, the way it always did after a shot of the heavy-duty painkiller. Jim knew he was going to be unconscious for at least the next six hours, and less than lucid for a while after that. Bones adjusted Jim so that he was on his side as the painkiller began to take effect, the way he preferred to sleep, and then settled down behind him. He wrapped an arm loosely around Jim’s waist and said nothing further. 

And sometimes, Jim thought sleepily, Bones’ silences were just as much a testament as were his words.

 

Jim woke again towards morning, but this time it was because Joanna had joined them. She had curled up on Jim’s side of the bed, stuffed animal in hand, her round eyes watching him dutifully. 

“Joanna,” Jim whispered sluggishly. It couldn’t have possibly been six hours yet. Bones was still sleeping heavily against his back, a puff of breath from his lips brushing Jim’s ear on every exhale. He never slept more than four or five hours at a time, and from his breathing it sounded as though he was completely under at the moment. “What’re you doin’ here, little one?”

His words were slow, but he managed them. 

“Do you live here now?” Joanna asked, continuing to watch him carefully. 

“Jus’ for a bit,” Jim whispered. He smoothed her hair away from her face. She pursed her lips. 

“You should stay,” she decided finally with a tiny, resolute nod. 

“S’not that simple, Jo-jo,” Jim said quietly.

“Why not?”

“It’s -” Jim broke off, struggling for words that wouldn’t form properly on his tongue. _It’s breaking about half a dozen taboos, if nothing else. A starship captain sleeping with his subordinate just isn’t done._ But he didn’t know how to explain that to a six-year-old. And maybe it was the medication that was making his concerns seem very remote at the moment, but the excuse he and Bones had been clinging to since Jim’s captaincy now seemed only flimsy at best. 

“You’re supposed to live together when you’re in love,” Joanna said stubbornly. “That’s what Miss Mary says.”

Lieutenant Harriman was Joanna’s usual minder, as she always worked opposite shifts from Bones and because Joanna had taken an immense liking to her from the start. 

“I - yeah, I suppose that’s right,” Jim stammered, at a loss for a proper response that would move them off this subject. For a moment, he wished Bones was awake. He was much more adept at dealing with these types of questions, and he knew how to deflect when he didn’t want Joanna probing further into something. 

Joanna still looked dissatisfied--and, now, also a bit wary. 

“Do you love Daddy?” she pressed. Her lips had thinned and her eyes were wide; she looked as though the question had never occurred to her before; as though she had never had any reason for it to be in doubt. 

“Yeah,” Jim croaked weakly.

“Are you _sure?”_

“Yes,” he told her, stronger this time. “Yes, sweetheart, I am. I love your daddy.”

Thank God Bones wasn’t awake to hear him, Jim thought dully. He’d probably die at the gross amount of sentiment that just spilled from Jim’s lips. 

Joanna considered him for a long moment.

“Okay,” she said finally with a small nod. “Then you can stay here.”

Bones’ arm twitched against Jim’s side. He froze, but Bones made no further movements. 

“I’ll have to talk to your daddy about it,” he said finally, hoping this would mollify Joanna. “Okay, Jo-jo?”

She nodded vigorously, looking pleased, and kissed him on the cheek before sliding off the bed. And before Jim had a chance to elbow Bones awake so he could see her back to bed, she was gone.

Jim let out a slow breath. And then, realizing that the breathing against the shell of his ear had changed, he felt his heart sink down to his feet. 

_ Shit _ . 

“I know you’re awake,” Jim managed finally. After a moment, Bones’ arm withdrew from around his waist, and he rested a hand on Jim’s hip. Jim rolled onto his back and turned to look at him. 

“I miss when things were that simple,” Bones said finally, quietly. Jim felt his heart clench. They had spoken of marriage before, but that was ages ago; a lifetime. All their plans had to be abandoned in favor of Jim’s captaincy. 

“You know, I think it’s precisely that simple, Bones,” Jim said quietly. “We’re the ones who make it seem difficult and impossible.”

Bones glanced at him. 

“What are you saying?” he asked quietly.

Jim bit down on the inside of his cheek, because he honestly didn’t know. He had just this afternoon outed them to his first officer, when over a year ago they had decided that it was best to keep their affair as discreet as possible for the time being. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking this afternoon, and still wasn’t sure - 

\- Except, yes, he was. He knew exactly what he’d been thinking. 

He’d chosen the captaincy over his Bones, over the man who refused to leave him behind; over the man who had gone as far as smuggling him aboard a starship so they wouldn’t be separated. He had to always be on his guard around the crew, to be careful not to mention Bones in too familiar a manner to the rest of his senior staff. He couldn’t publicly share in Bones’ delight over Joanna as she grew up before their very eyes, and the best part of his life was starting to feel like a dirty secret. 

He loved and was loved in return, by his best friend no less, and wasn’t it time they did something about that?

To hell with the regulations. He knew _exactly_ what he’d been thinking. 

“Marry me,” Jim whispered, the words foreign to his ears but perfect on his tongue.

“Jim -”

“Marry me,” Jim repeated, his voice stronger. “Take me as your husband. Let me raise your daughter with you. _Marry me_ , Bones.”

Bones’ lips parted, but words failed him for a moment. 

“I ain’t any good at this, Jim, and I’ve got a divorce under my belt to prove it,” he said finally.

“You’re wonderful at this, Bones, and you’ve got a gorgeous little girl to prove it,” Jim countered.

“Jim.” It was a plea. _Do you have any idea what you’re saying?_

“Marry me.”

“You’re delusional,” Bones said calmly. “You’re not thinking right because of the medication. You _know_ they’ll give us hell for this.”

“Bones, I’ve never been more sure about _anything_ in my life. And I’ve still got a few friends left in the admiralty. Marry me.”

Bones smoothed the hair off of Jim’s forehead. It had grown out in recent weeks. He was long overdue for a haircut, and had been for a while, but Bones loved it like this.

“Ask me in the morning,” he said quietly.

“Bones -”

“In the morning,” Bones said firmly. “If you’re sure--if you’re _absolutely sure_ \--then ask me again in the morning. I don’t want this to be the medicine talking or something. Ask me in the morning.” He took a wavering breath and added, quietly, “And I’ll say yes.”

“Len.”

Bones pressed a finger to Jim’s lips, gently.

“Ask me again in the morning,” he whispered.

And Jim did. 


End file.
